


Foreseeable

by talkingtothesky



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Angst, Codependency, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e13 4C, First Time, Jealousy, M/M, Men Crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:15:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21847459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkingtothesky/pseuds/talkingtothesky
Summary: John and Harold have some more things to work out in Rome.
Relationships: Harold Finch/John Reese, John Reese/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 81





	Foreseeable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Michaelssw0rd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michaelssw0rd/gifts).

> Hey, Tee! This is a super late fill for a prompt you left in the PoI Exchange, for Post 4C sex? It kinda became an emotional rollercoaster, but I hope it still makes an acceptable birthday gift. All the best. <3

For the past fifteen minutes as they walked, Harold had been cheerfully talking about everything and nothing, to cover the awkwardness between them. John liked hearing him, but when he realized Harold was leading them in the direction of the museum, he quietly started to panic.

"It won't open to the public for another two hours yet. But I know the owner, she'll let us in early. We can explore by ourselves." Harold’s excitement was so palpable, John wanted to let him keep enjoying it. His own feelings were irrelevant here. John kept telling himself that, all the way down the road. You hurt him by leaving. Just do this. Make it up to him.

His feet glued themselves to the cobblestones regardless. Harold strode a few paces ahead before he noticed John wasn't following. John watched his face fall and felt like dirt.

"John?"

His eyes filled with tears again at the tenderness in Harold's voice. He didn't deserve it. He wanted Harold to be angry with him, yell the way John had yelled.

"What's wrong? You were critically ill not long ago. I shouldn't be-"

He couldn't let Harold chastise himself. "It's not that." John croaked.

Harold took his arm anyway, as though frightened John might collapse. Not an unreasonable fear - he had done exactly that in Quinn's safehouse. Harold had tried to catch him.

John had been falling for so long now.

"Don't take me to the same places you took Grace." There, he'd said it. No more smooth evasions.

Harold's face did something complicated, then he let go of John’s arm and stepped back. "You're right. I have rather taken control of things. Where would you like to go?"

John grimaced. He didn't have any better ideas. "Can we just...walk?"

They did. Narrow street after narrow street of modern storefronts framed by baroque arches. John picked their path at random. They passed a little flower stall on a corner. John pictured himself handing Harold a bouquet. Embarrassment prickled the back of his neck. He walked on by.

A teenager on a moped sped round a bend. John grasped Harold's wrist to pull him out of the way and didn't let go until several minutes had passed. He kept moving aimlessly until they emerged into the Piazza del Popolo. The wide open space should have made him more paranoid, but he wanted them to blend into the crowd. They sat down on the steps in front of a fountain and quietly watched the people come and go. John was still wrestling with his feelings when Harold spoke up.

"John, the exhibit...I didn't mean it as a date."

"I know."

Harold frowned. "You were on a date of sorts with Holly this morning."

"Yeah." Reaching into his pocket, he took the card she'd given him and handed it to Harold. He'd done the same with Logan Pierce's watch. No tracking beacon this time.

Harold read the number, turned it over between his fingers. John waited for him to tear it up, sprinkle the pieces in the fountain. But of course that didn't happen. He passed it back, intact. "You deserve to be free. I've taken more than enough from you already."

"That's too bad. I belong in New York."

"Then why did you leave?" The unsteadiness of Harold's voice hurt John's heart.

"Because maybe I don't deserve to belong anywhere. Not when good people keep ending up dead."

"It wasn't your fault! Nor mine. Nor the Machine's. We saved 130 people yesterday. And none of them were Detective Carter. That's a bitter pill to swallow. It wouldn't surprise me if you needed more time."

John didn't have an answer for that. He'd seen Harold's face light up. Harold wanted John back working the Numbers again more than anything. But he had a point, too. John had been making poor decisions lately. Whatever Harold said, it was definitely John's fault.

He moved one foot up a step so he could rest his chin on his knee, arms around his leg.

Harold put a cautious hand on his shoulder. John leaned into it and closed his eyes. A few tears soaked into his jeans. Harold rubbed his back consolingly.

"You must be exhausted. You can't have slept for at least two nights, and before that..."

John was continually falling apart, and Harold was still being strong. "All you've done since it happened is take care of me." He realized, sniffing, drying his face with his arm.

"That's all I want to do. To know that you're safe. But this never ending mission of ours overrides that. Unfortunately I can't have one without the other."

But he had worked the Numbers without John. “You and Shaw get on okay?” Things had been going badly for them when he and Fusco intervened, but until that point…

Harold’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Yes, fine. She’s a great asset. Still, we missed you.” Harold squeezed John’s shoulders once more, then let go.

“And the Machine put me on that flight.” He held up Holly’s card. “You’d like to offer me more downtime, but it doesn’t agree.”

Harold hummed, watching a pigeon pecking at the concrete as it went past. “I do regret that. Part of setting the Machine free - it can act in ways I hadn’t foreseen.”

Another uncomfortable silence. They had wandered onto unsafe territory. _You built something you can’t control._

John stretched his legs out and sat up straight. He expected his healing side to hurt, but it didn’t. He dropped Holly’s number deep into a small gap between the steps, where it wouldn’t be found by some stranger. She was sweet, but it was fantasy to think their lives could overlap in a meaningful way.

Harold was maddening, and complicated. But walking away hadn’t given John the clarity he’d hoped for. The Machine remained an essential part of the purpose Harold offered him. With the museum offer, Finch had attempted to connect with him on a personal level, disregarding the Numbers. Instead he’d managed to remind John that he once had a go at being an ordinary person in an ordinary relationship, even with the Machine looking over his shoulder. Either way. John was too weak to handle it.

~

Harold took charge at his suit fittings, and John allowed himself to slide into a zen kind of mental space in which he didn’t have to think so much. They happened to have a long black coat in stock to replace the one he’d bled on. He walked out wearing it, already feeling more like himself, on the outside at least.

He regretted not spending the time more constructively when they got back to Harold’s hotel. He should have been figuring out how to apologize for everything. How to say “I love you” when he could no longer say “I love this job” and have it mean the same thing. Instead he dropped their shopping bags into a chair and stood there awkwardly while Harold took his tie off.

Harold gave him a mild look like he couldn’t understand what John was waiting for, then he said “Oh!” And hurried to the desk. “I forgot to give you your key, you’re just down the hall.”

John said “thanks” even as his heart sank.

Harold smiled. “Thank _you_ for indulging me today. I had fun choosing things.”

“They all looked the same shade of black to me,” he replied automatically, repeating what he’d said at the time as Harold pored over fabric.

Harold’s lips pursed. “Yes, well.” He sank onto the end of the bed and his chin doubled as he reached to unlace his shoes. John wanted to kneel down and help him. “Goodnight, Mr. Reese.”

“Night, Harold.” John willed himself to stop as he turned the door handle, but then he was out in the corridor, the door beeped as it locked, and that was that.

He didn’t go to his room. He took the stairs, and the next thing he knew he was entering the bar. The mixologist behind it winked at John as he walked in, in the midst of flipping a cocktail shaker over in the air five times before it landed. He was young, slim, Japanese. Rolled up sleeves, vest, quirky bow tie. Nice smile.

John checked himself. The only person he wanted to sleep with was upstairs and he’d left him all alone.

He’d stopped himself from drinking. That was something. But he still couldn’t go in. He walked silently down the hall, and pressed his forehead to the wall next to Harold’s door. His thoughts were still splintering into opposing sides.

_I am inordinately happy to see you._

_We knew Simmons was a threat for years, and you wouldn’t let me kill him._

He was still angry, and he was afraid of what that anger might do if he knocked on the door.

It must have looked as though he was contemplating kicking it in, because a hotel porter made a beeline for John and loudly asked what he was doing.

John kept his voice low, but there was no way Harold wouldn’t hear. “Waiting for a friend.”

"I'm coming back along this corridor in three minutes. If you're still out here, I'm calling security."

John wisely did not tell him he’d make mincemeat of security.

The porter left, and the door opened, and John stepped through.

Harold was barefoot, in gold paisley silk pajamas that John had seen him buy. That was the last straw. He shut the door too hard and pressed him to it, his teeth grazing the vulnerable skin at Finch’s throat. He’d caught a fistful of chest hair along with the front of the shirt, heard Harold gasp at the sharp tug. Still mouthing Harold’s neck and up behind his ear, he unclenched his fist and undid the large black buttons, which gave him access to the rest of Harold’s torso. He kissed patches of it at random, descending until he was on his knees, up close with Harold’s belly button. He pinched the little muffin top at Harold’s waist with both hands, dragged his beard against it.

Harold said “God. Reese!” and finally got a tight hold on John’s chin.

He stilled and looked up at Finch. Harold was wide eyed, without his glasses, shocked but not scared, never scared.

Even after he’d seen the blood on John’s hands. Harold knew what kind of man he’d hired. After a moment he adjusted his grip to drag a hard thumb over Reese’s lower lip. It was sore, split, John didn’t know when he’d bitten it. But within this charged, near silent exchange, he sensed it. Gone was the mild mannered philosopher who talked of free will and responsibility. This was the man who spied on the whole world and expected them to thank him for it.

John gave him a crude once over and there, _now_ he was happy to see him. Reese lifted a finger toward the bulge and was swatted away. Harold yanked on the back of John’s coat collar. “Up. Stand up!”

John got to his feet.

“Away from the door.” Harold grabbed one of his arms, pulled it partially behind his back, and frogmarched him across the room, dropped him into the one chair that was empty of bags containing scarves and socks and underwear. “Stay there. Hell were you thinking.” The second part was mostly to himself, as he hurriedly did up the buttons on his top. John still had one hell of a view. His nipples were poking out and he couldn’t do anything about the erection. John was sweating in his coat. It was designed for winter in New York, not Italy, and not this.

“I knew there was something.” Harold said. He was pacing. “Outside the museum. You’ve never said anything like that before.”

John took a deep breath. “Yes, I have. And so have you.”

“When?” Harold was incredulous.

“’She seems nice.’” John put air quotes around it.

“A statement of fact.”

“Yeah, but if you really respected my decision to leave, you wouldn’t have tracked my phone, then sat in the middle of the street outside the building for half an hour until I met you. I could barely even look at her, because there you were.”

_In your stupid orange tie_, he didn’t add, because his fondness would have overtaken his anger. No mourning clothes for Harold. He’d stood out like a traffic cone.

“John.” Harold was ordering him not to continue. John didn’t listen.

His voice became increasingly husky. “You’ve owned me for a while now. It comes so naturally you don’t even notice you’re doing it. Like stamping on a two million dollar watch. Like saving my life with seven seconds to spare and then warning me not to mention it.”

Harold made a frustrated noise, and then John’s lap was full of him. The chair wasn’t wide enough. He wobbled, trying to kneel on John’s thighs, until John caught and steadied him. It was the clumsiest, filthiest kiss John could remember having. He’d never tried to ruthlessly strip away Harold’s secrets before, always respected the dignity he was cultivating. There was nothing dignified about John’s hands on his ass, about the way Harold was trembling all over and breathing fast near John’s ear when they broke apart.

“If you can’t bear to lose me, Harold,” he said, nosing at his cheek, “then _take_ me.”

Harold slid off his lap. John was once again fascinated by his bare feet on the plush hotel carpet, until Harold caught his lapels and dragged him up after him. They kissed again, and Harold shoved his hands under the shoulders of the heavy coat he’d bought. John had to stop touching him to shake his arms behind himself so it could slide off. It had barely hit the floor before Harold was working on John’s belt, and he realized he was the one wearing more layers than Harold for once. He stepped out of shoes, jeans, underwear, everything. Slid into the unmade bed. Harold had already been in it when John came to the door. Harold’s shimmery gold pajamas were gone too, so when he climbed in next to him, John had an abundance of skin to touch.

Now that the floodgates were open, he found he couldn’t stop talking. Strained whispers just loud enough for Harold to hear. “Are you going to let me mention this? Next week can I tell you how much I like this part, and this, and this?” He stroked Harold’s forearm, and the dip of his back, and Harold’s cock as it pushed against John’s hip.

Harold groaned. “Your voice.” He felt for John’s hand, laced their fingers together, used it to push John’s arm back on the pillow above his head. This exposed John’s side to his gaze. Harold’s head dipped and carefully kissed the thick gauze pad covering his worst wound. John sucked in his stomach and felt wetness smear on it, pre-come. Harold noticed it too. There was a glint in his eyes when they flicked up to meet John’s which only made John harder. Harold kissed his way down and John lifted his hand off the pillow to follow him, keeping their fingers linked.

John closed his eyes when Harold took him into his mouth. He sucked his own split lip to keep quiet. The feel of his lips and tongue…John gave himself up, gave him everything. Harold alternated between coaxing and demanding. When John was spent, Harold lay on his side and pulled the covers over them.

John reached for Harold’s cock and found it soft.

Harold cupped his cheek. “It’s alright. Later. Rest now.”

Harold played with his hair, and John drifted.

After a while, when his dick had ceased throbbing, he murmured “Sorry I yelled.”

“I’m sorry I failed you.”

John winced, but Harold kissed him until the pain receded.

“You’re absolutely right. About all of it. Will you… promise you won’t quit again, no matter how bad things get. I tried to make you my heir, John, and you wouldn’t have it. So…partners?”

It took John a moment to figure out he meant the Contingency. If he’d died he would have left everything to John. The only one who knew.

He didn’t need any help making this decision. “I won’t leave, promise. I’m with you. Always.”

“Thank you.”

When their lips met again, John tasted salt. He wasn’t sure which of them was crying.

He wrapped his arms around Harold and held him tight. John felt more solid, now. They’d knocked down all the crumbling walls and built a new foundation.

They’d be flying home tomorrow. He hoped they could figure out how to be better, together, back in the City. The odds were good: they’d done it before.


End file.
